Category Archives: Music

The Surreal McCoys, The Howl & The Growl. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

People are strange when you’re a stranger…however the more you get to know them and with fortune the more dreamlike and wonderfully weird they become and when it comes to The Surreal McCoys, they don’t get much more magnificently odd and musically cool.

Take their new album, The Howl & The Growl, too whichever number you like, to which extreme fits your ears and the sense of fun and occasion they demand to be taken to, for in the depth of surreal passion, in the wake of all that went before it, The Howl & The Growl is nothing but charm personified.

The Surreal McCoys, The Howl & The Growl. Album Review. full post

(390 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

Roxanne de Bastion, Seeing You. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

In every song there should be so much passion placed that it must ooze and clamber out of the stereo and find its way Blob like into the ears of the listener to become enthused with the lyrical coolness and the itching to understand the depth in which some musical instruments can take human emotion to.

Life without passion is just the same as finding oneself watching six hours of television a day and guzzling a bottle of wine without truly tasting it every night, the lustre, the shine of some freedoms are never worth it and enthusiasm for the world soon starts to wane into nothing.

Roxanne de Bastion, Seeing You. E.P. Review. full post

(367 words, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

Seprona, Receive the Deceiver. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Unless we are very fortunate, working out who really is on your side and who only wants a piece of the action you are supplying, loyalty a word missing from the stunted vocabulary, is almost akin to living through a Film Noir in which you are the shady detective and everyone, including the musical score, is conspiring against you and hoping that you will, with open arms, Receive the Deceiver.

Seprona, Receive the Deceiver. Single Review. full post

(344 words, estimated 1:23 mins reading time)

Mama Roux, E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

That voodoo that they do so well really does set the feet tapping beyond the expectation of what the ears demand when asking to be stimulated and encouraged to try something new.

It is in the art of the story teller that such songs come bouncing out of the cage like a pent up fighter seeking to land the first punch but to whom the necessity of doing so causes grief, much better that the tussle between mind and ear be mutual and one of understanding and it is to this that the four track self titled E.P. by Mama Roux really gives its life and respect too.

Mama Roux, E.P. Review. full post

(376 words, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)

Paul Smith And The Imitations, Contradictions. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

A contradiction should always be used for a basis of an argument when the truth is as shady as a large canopy spread over a wide area and with the Sun and the rain both beating down on it with vigorous ambition. Contradiction should not be employed when discussing Maximo Park’s Paul Smith’s latest project with the Imitations, the musically absorbing Contradictions.

Paul Smith And The Imitations, Contradictions. Album Review. full post

(383 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

Joss Stone, Water For Your Soul. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Life has never been dull where Joss Stone is concerned and that, despite many who arguably find it a national sport to knock such ability, is what matters when it comes to inspiration for any song, poem or piece of art; it is not what it seems; it is what it represents under the surface. For Joss Stone to come back after four years without a set of new songs and a fresh new album, Water For Your Soul represents hope and strength for her and her fans.

Joss Stone, Water For Your Soul. Album Review. full post

(365 words, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

Dominic Dunn, Bury Your Head. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The one thing you can never accuse one of the finest young talents in Liverpool of doing is putting his head in the sand and hoping that whatever ails the city will soon blow over. It is an observation that can be said of all with the eternal stamp of pride that comes with being born within sight of the Mersey, the far flung Welsh hills and the knowledge what is right and wrong pumped into their veins from an early age and for Kirkdale’s Dominic Dunn this is especially true as he offers his new single Bury Your Head out to those who will not stand idly as the sound of wolves biting and slavering away at decency rattle the doors and sniff at the windows.

Dominic Dunn, Bury Your Head. Single Review. full post

(380 words, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)

Neal Morse, Morsefest 2014 Live. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The extravaganza of it all, the performance, the gala festival, when it all boils down it no amount of words can quite possibly describe the flowing momentum and atmosphere that surrounds Neal Morse, one of the kings of the Progressive Rock genre, as his music is captured tantalisingly live and presented with open and frank clarity in Neal Morse’s Morsefest 2014 Live.

Neal Morse, Morsefest 2014 Live. Album Review. full post

(462 words, 1 image, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

Three Minute Hero, In This Generation. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

To each generation the prospect of strife, hardship and being looked down upon a despicable Government is a very real and frightening prospect. For the current younger generation who have lived through what was called with vigour and dishonesty, a credit crunch, a decline or even a slowdown in the economy but will perhaps be given its rightful name of the great Depression of the 21st Century as history unfolds. Three Minute Hero’s latest single, In This Generation, looks deep into the eyes of those that have caused such misery and want and shows the world exactly what despair he sees in the hate filled iris’.

Three Minute Hero, In This Generation. Single Review. full post

(356 words, estimated 1:25 mins reading time)

Science Of The Lamps, Lonely. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Film and music are so intrinsically linked together that sometimes it is easy to forget just how much they would be missed if separated, torn apart and left to fend for themselves.

For the sensational Liverpool band Science of the Lamps and in particular the woman behind the thought process and cohesive story-telling, film is a logical move. The band’s latest song, Lonely, sits up there with the very best of the Nordic tales that they have written and provides the perfect backdrop for the new feature film My Lonely Me.

Science Of The Lamps, Lonely. Single Review. full post

(370 words, estimated 1:29 mins reading time)